RSSWhy does it take Evil Racist Republicans to repeal Jim Crow Laws?
The Republicans take control of the Georgia Legislature for the first time in a century and they repeal the Jim Crow Laws. The democrats scream the Republicans are racists, but it seems when good things happen for Blacks in Georgia, Republicans are behind it.
I know it is a purely symbolic gesture, but why didn’t the Democrats do something about it previously?
Perdue signs bills erasing ‘Jim Crow’ laws
With a few strokes of his pen, Gov. Sonny Perdue on Thursday erased some of the ugliest parts of Georgia’s history from the state’s legal code.
The governor signed four bills that repeal segregation-era laws. The laws have not been enforced in years, but they remained in the code. Perdue said that removing the laws is not only a symbolic gesture, but also a substantive one.
“Today I think is another important step in the ongoing process of putting real meat to the process of racial reconciliation in Georgia,” Perdue said in his office before signing the bills.
The laws were aimed at circumventing the desegregation of public schools following the 1954 Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. Board of Education:
That is why you elect Republicans, we have substance, not rhetoric. As opposed to our most loyal opposition across the aisle.
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Update: I meant to add this last night, but thanks Joe V. for sending me this story.
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31 Responses to “Why does it take Evil Racist Republicans to repeal Jim Crow Laws?”
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You mean they were still on the books? I never knew. Ya learn something everyday.
[...] apparently there were still some Jim Crow laws still on the books here in Georgia. Now they’re gone. And good riddance! Only 50 years or so late. [...]
Thanks for the post. I’m visiting from NRO (which does a good job in keeping me from doing my job). In a very real way, it does not matter whether those reprehensible laws were enforced or not. Good for the republicans!
When my white friends talk about how paranoid blacks are about white racism, I point out that most adult blacks they know lived under Jim Crow. Are you paranoid when they really are out to get you?
I usually finish with a request for white patience because we all know that the Jim Crow laws went by the wayside a generation ago. Evidently, that is not so — they were still on the books the whole time. Yikes!
Well of course it took the Republicans to remove the Jim Crow laws. It took the Party that actually reads the Law to notice that they were still there and the Party that still has a sense of shame to remove them.
If the democrats had attempted to erase the laws , republicans would have used it against them in the next election. This was a “Nixon goes to China” moment
I don’t understand Bobby Israel’s point. How would Republicans have used it against Democrats if Democrats would have done this? I don’t see how repealing such laws could be a political negative for whatever party that does it.
I agree with you Steve. They are the party that had control of Georgia for 100 years. What better way of showing that they have changed and are repentant for the evil they committed.
I would have gone one step further and created an omnibus bill that encapsulated all of the segregation era laws and removed them all. It would have been a dramatic and positive statement.
I guess that is why the Republicans are in charge of the state now, they understand these things.
Hmmm……Georgia? That same state that had Governor Jimmy Carter? I don’t believe this! Governor Jimmy would no more have left Jim Crow Laws on the books than he would have tolerated the Confederate Battle Flag on the State Flag!
Carter must have been too busy building Outhouses For Humanity back then
Those gosh-darn RightWingFundamentalistRepublicans strike again! Liberating the slaves, breaking Sen. Byrd(D) led (D)emocratic filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and now repealing the (D)emocrat party supported ‘Jim Crow’ laws…
No comment from the NAACP?
Next thing ya know they’ll be wanting to give everbody some kinda personal savings account as if we’re all able to manage money and think ahead. Someone stop the insanity!
I see Red started the comments. How are ya, Red?
As to the laws, I congratulate anyone who gets rid of this type of racist filth. The only thing I wish is that it would stop there. But no, we have to say,”OOOH, look what the Democrats didn’t do.”
Can’t you just say good job, and move on?
See, now I’m a litte riled up.
In response to some one talking about how Byrd held up the Civil Rights Act:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond
“Thurmond supported racial segregation with the longest filibuster ever on the Senate floor, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to derail the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He began by reading the entire text of each state’s election laws.
On September 16, 1964; Thurmond switched his party affiliation, becoming a Republican, in protest of the Democrats’ support and President Johnson’s shepherding of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
I know Byrd was a KKK member. I would never deny that. People change. Strom Thurmond claimed to have changed, and I’ll admit that his stances softenend over the years. George Wallace changed. However:
I don’t defend racism in any form. But my larger point is that everyone is to blame. A republican Governor repealed laws that no one enforced. Good for him. And mean good for him to get rid of that racist past. But I think it has more to do with him being a good person, not his party affiliation.
Besides, do we really want to get into who did more for civil rights? and what the Republican and Democratic parties stood for prior to Civil rights? And how there was a switch.
Lots of mud to be slung both ways.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
: )
Craig Zimmerman
Funny how that works. I am just trying to figure out how in the Hell these laws stayed on the books when they have been a Democratic battle cry.
Will,
Hey what’s up? You gotta admit Will, how could Democrats be in complete control of this State for so long and not have repealed these heinous laws? Talk about all style and no substance. They may want to check the GA laws and really make sure that slavery was taken of as well. I am stunned these laws still existed. Good thing I didn’t have money on it. Will, look, we agreed again, now hell just froze over, Jim Crow & racism bad.
See, we conservative republicans don’t want to bite the heads off of puppies like everyone wants people to believe.
Bobby Isreal Says:
“If the democrats had attempted to erase the laws , republicans would have used it against them in the next election. This was a “Nixon goes to China” moment”
???
Ahh, Bobby … I think the Democrats had plenty of opportunity to repeal the Jim Crow laws long before 2005. Don’t ya think? How could the elimination of racism ever be spun to be a negative? Are you being sarcastic? I hope?
I am in no way associated with Bobby Isreal. His “logic” makes no sense.
What I’m wondering is how many more states have these laws on the books, and what can be done to get rid of them.
Will,
I think these law makers in these States better start earning their money and figure out what laws really do exist. There are so many that have been kept on in New England since the 1700′s.
Last I knew unless they had finally repealed them:
1. You can graze cattle on the Boston Commons
2. In VT it was mandatory to bring your gun and at least six rounds of ammo to Church on Sundays. (Seems the natives figured out that the settlers were unarmed when they went to church and lets say would exploit the matter.)
I am hoping that maybe that once has since been taken off.
Don’t forget it was the Democrat Party who wrote the Jim Crow laws.
Naturally, it took Republicans to erase them for good.
“That is why you elect Republicans, we have substance, not rhetoric.”
how is it substance to change laws that aren’t enforced?
So its a rublican who has ended the last jim crow law in this nation? and they are always blaming replicans for what befalls them wheres JEESIE JACKSON and AL SHARPTON to sit around and talk about racsis repbilcans?
Around The Blogosphere
Looking around I came across these items of interest.
first of all, jim crow laws were enacted by southern democrats at the time that are known as “dixiecrats” which joined the republican party soon after
secondly, your statement: “Why does it take Evil Racist Republicans to repeal Jim Crow Laws?” is just another example of partisan misleading b.s., you make it sound like ONLY a republican did this….this article should clear it up for you
State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta), president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, told colleagues in a speech Wednesday that the laws are a reminder of “one of the darkest eras in our history when our state was working hard to maintain an apartheid system, a separate society.”
Brooks is joined as a co-sponsor of the bill by Republican Rep. Mike Coan of Lawrenceville. “This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s an issue of right and wrong,” said Coan.
The Georgia Code retains at least four laws passed in response to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which overturned segregation in schools.
Georgia’s laws, among other things, give the governor the power to close a public school likely to “cause violence or public disorder . . . to preserve the good order, peace and dignity of the state.” They also allow the governor to suspend compulsory education laws when integration threatens.
Most legislators were unaware that the laws remained on the books until publicity surrounding a University of Arizona study on the topic last year. The study found that Georgia and at least seven other states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia — still had Jim Crow laws. Missouri and Louisiana subsequently removed their Jim Crow statutes.
Brooks said Wednesday that lawmakers from both parties are signing on to the bill. “I think that it could pass unanimously. I think everyone wants to go forward.”
excuse me for the first point, i didnt mean they(dixiecrats) enacted them, they were against the repealing of those laws
m f otk spanking…
Info about m f otk spanking….
Not all racists are Republicans, but all Republicans are racists.
REPUBLICANS STINK! THEY ARE RACIEST!
GO ATHEIST!
Drew is so right. Listen to him, he’s smart
GO ATHEIST!
Because Republicans aren’t all racist and evil like people say they are. Politics is like a preschool now, with one kid named democrat and another named republican fighting over a toy truck. The Jim Crow laws were inhumane, and I believe everyone can agree with that whether they are white, black, democrat, or republic. Besides, have you ever been in the capitol building? It’s filled with black people. He’s the governor of Georgia living in Atlanta, for Christ’s sake. If he was racist, he wouldn’t be elected governor here in the first place.
Those Southern “Bluedog” Dems you speak of are todays modern Republicans . One in the same. The exodus from the Democratic Party by Southern Dems took place after they realized the Northern faction of their party was going to pass The Civil Rights Act, which struck the Jim Crow Laws null and void. Far more important than who finally “removed” them from the books. Political B.S.